_NEW CHANGES._
LATE in March that year we began to hear that the measles were
prevailing in town, and in the course of a week all three of us
children and Jane, the house-maid, were taken down with them. Amelia
and I were very sick from the first; the others had the disease
lightly. Phebe took care of me, and my aunt of Amelia, while a woman
from outside who often worked for us attended on the other two.
On the tenth day after my attack I was better, and Phebe left me to
myself for what seemed to me a very long time. I heard movements in
the other room, and now and then I could distinguish Amelia's voice,
and a great longing seized me to see her again. I rose; and putting on
such of my clothes as could find, I stole softly into the next room.
At first I did not understand the state of things at all. Amelia was
sitting up in bed supported in my aunt's arms. The eruption had all
disappeared and her eyes looked bright and clear, and she was not
much thinner or paler than usual, but I saw that she breathed with
difficulty. Dr. Warren stood at one side of the bed with the sick
child's hand in his, and Phebe at the other with her handkerchief at
her eyes. My aunt was very pale, and now and then a tear rolled down
her cheeks.
"I am not afraid," I heard Amelia say, speaking distinctly, but
stopping between the words. "I think He will be good to me and let me
go to father and mother. I am sorry I told lies, Aunt Belinda, but I
was so weak, and it frightened me so to be punished."
I saw a spasm as of pain cross my aunt's face at these words. They were
the last that Amelia spoke. She lay quiet for some time—I don't know
how long—then she suddenly raised herself, with a bright, happy smile,
and put out her arms like a baby which sees its mother, and the next
moment she was gone.
"It is all over," said Doctor Warren, taking the little body from my
aunt's arms and laying it down. "The dear child is at rest."
I comprehended then that Amelia was dead, and burst out crying. My aunt
rose from the bed; and taking my hand, she led me to my own room and
put me to bed without saying a word.
"Please don't go away, Aunt Belinda," I sobbed; "please do stay with
me."
"If you will be quiet and try to go to sleep, I will lie down on the
bed with you," said my aunt. "We must try to comfort each other Olivia."
It was a wonderful thought to me that I could do anything to comfort
Aunt Belinda. She lay down on the bed by my side, and I put my arms
round her and kissed her over and over again as I might have done with
my own mother, and she did not repel my caresses, but drew me close to
her and called me her dear little girl. It was the first time she had
ever given me a pet name of any kind. I fell asleep in her arms after a
while, and slept for a long time. I do not think my aunt slept, though
she lay quite still. When I awoke, she kissed me again and said I had
done her good, but she was very sad for a long time.
Amelia's death seemed to make a great change in our household. Both
Elmina and I had weak eyes, which prevented our resuming our lessons
immediately. My aunt's rules were very much relaxed; and though she
never indulged us in anything wrong, she allowed us much more liberty.
She even tried to make herself a companion to us, laying aside her
usual employments, in which she was very systematic, to read to us the
few story-books we possessed, and telling us tales of her early days in
the colony and afterward in the English boarding-school where she lived
for more than six years.
My enjoyment of these tales was very great especially as my aunt
allowed me to ask questions and make remarks. Her school was a very
strict and fashionable one near London; and when I heard her account
of the way she had been trained and repressed and disciplined day and
night, I no longer wondered at her ideas of education, but rather
that she had lived through the process at all. And, after all, with
the exception of French and music, I did not see that she had really
learned much more than Jeanne and I had acquired under Miss Tempy
Hutchinson.
Elmina did not like these conversations as much as I did. She thought
them stupid and tiresome, and was always stealing away to gossip with
Jane, and, as I suspected, to read the books with which Jane furnished
her. Where Jane got them I don't know; I suppose she borrowed them
among her acquaintances. They consisted of novels as novels were about
the middle of the last century—stories about fine ladies who fell in
love with footmen, and chamber-maids who were noblemen's daughters
in disguise, or who attracted the notice of dukes and earls by their
beauty; and they were not only the poorest of the poor in a literary
point of view, but so utterly low, coarse, and immoral that it is no
wonder serious and right-minded people of those days objected to novels
altogether.
Elmina's eyes were left weak by the measles, as usually happens with
that disease, and they did not improve as mine did. If they were
better for a day or two, they invariably got worse again, and at last
Aunt Belinda called in Doctor Warren to examine them. Elmina was very
unwilling to see him, but she had no choice.
Dr. Warren looked at her eyes, and asked if she used them by
candle-light.
"She uses them very little by any light," said my aunt. "She has no
lessons, and is not allowed to read or do any fine work."
"They ought to be well by this time," said the doctor. "You see how
much Olivia's have improved."
He made some prescription for her and sent her away; and then, turning
to my aunt, he said, abruptly,—
"Madam, I am convinced that child does not tell the truth."
My aunt looked annoyed.
"I am aware that the heart of man it deceitful," said she; "but I
hardly think Elmina could have imposed on me even if so disposed."
"I think you will find she has," answered the doctor. And so it proved.
Elmina and I usually went to bed at eight, unless on company nights,
when we were allowed to sit up an hour longer. We usually left our
candles burning; and when we were in bed, Phebe came and carried them
away. Phebe, as well as the doctor, had suspicions about Elmina,
and one night, instead of going directly down stairs, as usual, she
quietly remained in the hall for half an hour, and then, suddenly
opening the door of my aunt's room, she discovered Elmina reading
in bed by the light of an end of sperm candle which she held in her
hand. My aunt burned sperm candles in her drawing-room instead of wax,
though she preferred the latter, because sperm candles were a New
England manufacture; and there had lately been several altercations
between Phebe and Jane concerning certain candle-ends which were not
forthcoming.
The mystery was now explained. Elmina in her fright actually tried to
hide the lighted candle in the bed, and but for Phebe's promptness
and presence of mind she might have been burned to death. As it was,
her hands and face were a good deal scorched; and if her sheets and
night-gown had been of cotton instead of good solid linen, she would
hardly have escaped.
My aunt was called directly, and made some suitable application to the
burns, postponing all questions until the next day.
In the morning came Phebe with the news that Jane was missing.
"Reckon she thought it best to be out of the way," said Phebe, with a
grim smile. "She knows what's good for herself. A good riddance, any
way."
At first Elmina was sullenly silent under my aunt's questioning, but at
last she confessed that she had bribed Jane to get her the books and
hide the candles for her.
But how had she obtained the money? We each had sixpence a week for
pocket-money. I had saved mine ever since I came to Boston that I might
have something wherewith to buy presents when I went home, and my aunt
did not disapprove of my doing so; but Elmina never had any beforehand.
I was startled by the look in my aunt's face when she called me and
asked me where my money was. "In a box in my drawer, Aunt Belinda," I
replied. "Don't you remember the money-box you gave me?"
"Bring it to me," said my aunt.
I did so, rejoicing in my own mind at its weight.
"It feels very heavy," I ventured to say as I put it into my aunt's
hand.
She poised it a moment, and then a sudden suspicion seemed to strike
her.
"I must ask you to let me open this box and see what is in it, Olivia,"
said she.
The box had a lid with a slit in it which was fastened by a hasp and
a little padlock. I produced the key, not at all unwilling to see
my hoard displayed. My aunt unlocked and opened it, and turned the
contents out on her lap. There was not a single silver piece in the
box—not a bit of money of any kind except two English half-pennies. All
the rest were bits of stone and pebbles.
I was utterly astounded, and my aunt turned absolutely white. It was
plain I had been robbed, but by whom?
"When did you put the last money in your box?" asked my aunt.
"It was last Saturday," I answered. "Don't you remember you did not
give me any money the week before, and last Saturday you gave me an
English shilling—a new one with a hole in it?"
"True; so I did. How long is it since you opened the box?"
"Never since you gave it to me," I answered. "I meant to keep it a
year."
"Where have you kept the key?" was the next question.
I told her in my work-box, tied to the key of my little writing-desk.
With all her strictness and system, my aunt was rather careless about
money. She used to leave her purse on the table and in her work-box,
and often forgot to lock her writing-desk. She now went to this
writing-desk—it was a high, old-fashioned secretary—and opened a little
drawer where I knew she kept a collection of gold and silver pieces,
foreign and old coins most of them. She looked them over, closed the
drawer, and returned to her seat paler than before.
"I have been robbed as well as yourself;" said she; "but I will repay
your loss, Olivia."
"I don't think you ought, Aunt Belinda," I interrupted. "It wasn't your
fault."
Now, an interruption was one of the worst sins in Aunt Belinda's
calendar, and I expected a severe reproof as soon as the words were
spoken, but I received only a very mild one:
"You should not interrupt me, Olivia. I say I will repay your loss.
Meantime, I trust you will not mention this affair of the missing
money to any one. I trust you, Olivia, because I believe you to be
trustworthy. You have many faults, as all children have, but I have
always found you perfectly truthful. God bless you, my child!"
These words and the kiss which went with them almost made amends for
the loss of my money. I was allowed to read a little now, and Aunt
Belinda told me I might take any book I pleased from the book-case by
the fire-place and amuse myself with it for an hour. I chose "Hakluyt's
Voyages," and opened to the story of the sailing and destruction of
the Spanish Armada—one of the finest historical pieces I ever read—but
I could hardly fix my attention on the narrative. I wondered whether
Elmina had really taken the money, and if so what would be done to her.
I wondered whether she would have been a better girl if she had been
brought up by my mother instead of Aunt Belinda, and then I remembered
how many naughty things I had done myself, and felt very much ashamed
of them.
I had not read a great deal when the clock struck the hour, but I
remembered Aunt Belinda's directions and put the book back on the
shelf, locked the case, and, as Aunt Belinda had told me, I put the key
into the drawer. I sat for some minutes looking out of the window, and
then Phebe entered and called me to dinner. To my surprise, the table
was set for me alone.
"My mistress has a bad headache and won't come down," said Phebe. "I
have taken her some tea, and she says you can have a cup if you like."
Now, a cup of tea at dinner, unless we were ill, was an almost
unheard-of indulgence.
"I hope Aunt Belinda isn't going to be sick," said I.
Phebe shook her head:
"I don't know. She feels dreadfully about this business. I never saw
her so cut up about anything."
"Do you really think Elmina got the money?" I ventured to ask.
"There's no doubt about it," answered Phebe. "We searched her
pocket, and there was your shilling and one of my mistress's silver
pocket-pieces, and after that Elmina owned that she took them and gave
them to Jane to buy her books and raisins and so on. But she says Jane
got some of the money, and I think it very likely."
"What do you suppose has become of Jane?" I asked.
Jane was a slave; for there were slaves in New England in those days.
"I know what ought to become of her," said Phebe, grimly enough; "but
I think it very likely mistress won't do anything—not even advertise
her. You see she blames herself for putting temptation in her way by
leaving her desk unlocked and her keys about; and I don't think it
right myself, though I do say that folks who want to steal will steal,
lock up as you may. It is all the worse in Jane because it shows such
ingratitude. Jane lived with some horrid, low, wicked people that
misused her dreadfully, and mistress bought her to save her out of
their hands. She was only ten years old then, and she has lived here
eight years, being taken care of and taught to read and sew, and
everything; and now to turn out like this! It beats all how unlucky
mistress is in bringing-up children, with all the pains she takes."
I had my own thoughts on this point; but if I had learned nothing else
at Aunt Belinda's, I had acquired the art—and a very good one it is to
acquire—of keeping my thoughts to myself.